After arriving a week ago in Spitsbergen, the Generali Arctic Observer team has been hard at work preparing Jean-Louis Etienne’s balloon in record time. This evening, the balloonist will sleep for the first time aboard his gondola and will be testing all the onboard equipment. According to the expedition’s weather expert, a favourable weather window looks like offering him an opportunity to take off on Easter Monday.

Longyearbyen, 2nd April 2010: The preparations are accelerating for Jean-Louis Etienne’s team. Initially, he was to go on stand-by on Thursday 8th April. But according to the team’s weather expert, there is a good weather window coming up on Monday 5th April. “Everything is ready and we’re waiting for the green light, explained Jean-Louis Etienne. For the time being, we’ve moved to amber, but if it goes green, we need to seize this opportunity. It is fairly rare to get a favourable weather window. However, we need to be patient. There are two important conditions required for the flight. On the one hand, the conditions high up need to be favourable to allow us to head northwards. And then, secondly, they need to be favourable on he ground, in order to inflate the balloon, there must not be too much wind. For the moment it’s looking good at high altitude, but not on the ground. So we’re watching to see what happens.”

Ready to take off…
Fortunately for Jean-Louis Etienne, his team has done a really good job to make sure everything is ready by Friday evening. “I am counting on a very strong team. I’ve been thinking about this for a year and a half now. All the little details that I thought about are falling into place. Watching all this happen in front of my eyes helps me relax. Ideally, everything will be ready by this evening and then tomorrow morning, after the test tonight, we’ll be able to see if everything is running smoothly.”

For the first time, Jean-Louis Etienne will be sleeping aboard his gondola to carry out a test under real conditions. “I’m going to spend the night on board to see how comfortable it is and to get to know my way around. I’ll be looking at how the heating works in relation to the size of the space. But the real goal of this test is above all to fit the sensors to be able to take magnetic and CO2 measurements, which will be done on the outside, and then checking to see whether all the data is relayed back. That just is not possible inside the shed where we are set up for the moment.” Before that, they will have to weigh the gondola with everything in place to know the exact weight at take-off. “Tomorrow morning, if the data transmission goes well, we’ll be taking the gondola to the take-off area. All that remains to be done then is to fit the helium valve to the balloon.”

Reminder: Jean-Louis Etienne is preparing an attempt to carry out the first balloon flight over the North Pole, from Spitsbergen to Alaska. During his flight, he will be carrying out a number of scientific measurements (CO2, magnetic field, tropospheric ozone and suspended particles) in order to “take the planet’s pulse.” The measurements carried out by Jean-Louis Etienne should allow the scientific community to understand more aboutclimate change by analysing real time data, which is rare or non-existent from these regions, using modelling systems.

Jean-Louis Etienne took off at 06.10 hrs this morning (Monday) from Longyearbyen, in Spitsbergen aboard Generali Arctic Observer to carry out the first crossing of the North Pole by balloon. This flight represents the third part of his Arctic trilogy, which began on foot, then by boat, before he took to the air. With the support of Zinedine Zidane, the expedition’s godfather, Jean-Louis Etienne took off this morning on a 3500 km voyage to Alaska via the North Pole.

Longyearbyen, 5th April 2010: Luc Trullemans, the expedition’s weather expert got it right. The weather window appeared on Sunday night, allowing the Generali Arctic Observer team to inflate the huge rozière balloon (which uses a mixture of hot air and helium). The operation lasted more than five hours during the night as everything was set up, attached and the 2000 m3 canopy inflated. Taking advantage of ideal weather conditions, the team move the take-off forward, as it was originally planned for eight this morning. “The weather window arrived a few hours early and so everything was a bit of a rush at the end,” declared Jean-Louis Etienne when he reached the take-off area. “It all happened rather quickly. They called me telling me to come as we were going to take off. I’m feeling quite relaxed. It will start to be enjoyable, once I’m a few metres up.”

Jean-Louis Etienne, his team and a few observers, who were present for the lift-off marking the start of this big adventure, had to wait around for an hour, while the final adjustments were being made concerning the flight. Like a dog straining at the leash, the balloon scraped the snow with impatience, as it was just held back by two attaching ropes and a few people had to grab hold to stop it from taking off. In this polar night, where the sun does not go down, with the sun’s rays striking the mountains, Zinédine Zidane enjoyed the fairy-tale sight of this balloon filling up and waiting to be released. “I feel really excited and am pleased to be at his side, as we talked a lot about this”, declared the ex-footballer. “Today is the big day for Jean-Louis. He’s been preparing this for a year and a half.”

When Jean-Louis Etienne’s team released the gondola and cut the last rope holding the balloon down, in a tick the emotion filled the crowd, who were amazed by the sight of this balloon suddenly taking off. A few minutes later, contacted on the VHF, Jean-Louis Etienne admitted that it was thrilling and enjoyable: « It wasn’t just a little bit of excitement, but a huge emotion that I felt at the start. It was an extraordinary moment. A highly charged moment. And gradually it turned to a scene of magnificent beauty. Now calm has returned. I’m gradually lifting up over Longyearbyen. It’s truly magical. I’m starting to see the outline of the mountains. There’s a landscape ahead of me with mountains and water. There is total peace. It’s really magnificent and exactly how I imagined it.”

Jean Louis Etienne Onboard Generali (Photo by Francis Latreille)

Before passing over the Spitsbergen mountains, Jean-Louis Etienne will be setting up the detectors, which will enable him to take various scientific measurements throughout the voyage to measure CO2, the magnetic field, the suspended particles and the tropospheric ozone. This first solo crossing of the North Pole by balloon is due to last between seven and ten days.